1942 Design Light Fleet Carrier

HMS Glory in 1946
Class overview
Operators	Royal Navy  Argentine Navy  Royal Australian Navy  Brazilian Navy  Royal Canadian Navy  French Navy  Indian Navy  Royal Netherlands Navy
Succeeded by	Centaur class
Subclasses	Colossus class Majestic class
Built	March 1942 – April 1961
In commission	December 1944 – October 2001
Planned	16
Completed	8 Colossus class, plus 2 maintenance carriers 5 Majestic class
Cancelled	1
Scrapped	15
General characteristics (Colossus class: as designed)
Displacement	13,200 tons (standard) 18,000 tons (full load)
Length	690 ft (210 m) flight deck 695 ft (212 m) overall
Beam	80 ft (24 m)
Draught	18 ft 6 in (5.64 m) standard 23 ft 3 in (7.09 m) full load
Propulsion	Parsons geared turbines 4 × Admiralty 3-drum boilers 40,000 shp (30,000 kW) 2 propeller shafts
Speed	25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph)
Range	12,000 nautical miles (22,000 km; 14,000 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Complement	1,050
Armament	6 × 4-barrelled 2 pounder anti-aircraft guns 16 × twin 20 mm Oerlikon mountings All weapons later replaced by 40 mm Bofors in varying configurations
Aircraft carried	Up to 52
General characteristics (Majestic class: as designed)
Displacement	15,750 tons (standard) 19,500 tons (full load)
Draught	19 ft 6 in (5.94 m) standard 24 ft 9 in (7.54 m) full load
Armament	30 × 40 mm Bofors (6 twin mountings, 18 single mountings)
Notes	Other characteristics as above

The 1942 Design Light Fleet Carrier, commonly referred to as the British Light Fleet Carrier, was a light aircraft carrier design created by the Royal Navy during the Second World War, and used by eight naval forces between 1944 and 2001. They were designed and constructed by civilian shipyards to serve as an intermediate step between the expensive, full-size fleet aircraft carriers and the less expensive but limited-capability escort carriers.

Sixteen Light Fleet carriers were ordered, and all were laid down to the Colossus class design during 1942 and 1943. However, only eight were completed to this design; of these, four entered service before the end of the war, and none saw front line operations. Two more were fitted with maintenance and repair facilities instead of aircraft catapults and arresting gear, and entered service as aircraft maintenance carriers. The final six were modified during construction to handle larger and faster aircraft, and were re-designated as the Majestic class. The construction of the six ships was suspended at the end of the war. Five were eventually completed with the last commissioning in 1961; however, the sixth, Leviathan, was dismantled for spare parts and scrap.

Although not completed in time to fight in the war, the carriers in Royal Navy service participated in the Korean War and the Suez Crisis. During the latter, two Colossus-class ships performed the first ship-based helicopter assault in history. Four Colossuses and all five completed Majestics were loaned or sold to seven foreign nations – Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, and the Netherlands – with three ships serving in three different naval forces during their careers. Foreign-operated Light Fleets took part in the Korean War, the First Indochina War, the Vietnam War, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, and the Falklands War.

Despite being intended as 'disposable warships', all of the completed Light Fleet carriers exceeded their planned three-year service life. The maintenance carriers were the first to be paid off in the 1950s, and by the 1960s, all of the Royal Navy carriers, (bar Triumph, which was later recommissioned as a repair ship) had been sold to other nations or for ship breaking. The carriers in other navies had longer service lives. At the time of her decommissioning in 2001, Minas Gerais was the oldest active aircraft carrier in the world. Despite attempts to preserve several of these carriers as museum ships, the last surviving example, Vikrant, was sold for scrapping in 2014.